2008 sioux falls canaries dav team set review

2008 Sioux Falls Canaries DAV team set
Official Score – RAIN OUT – no make up date scheduled
Manufacturer: Disabled American Veterans (undetermined printing source)
Sponsor: Disabled American Veterans
Retail price: FREE SGA– not available for purchase

Who doesn’t love FREE baseball cards? It would be impossible to not like FREE baseball cards, right?

…. er, not so fast ….

The 26-card Sioux Falls Canaries limited edition subset of the 2008 DAV minor league baseball set is a complete tragedy. The cards themselves are well made- and certainly well intentioned, but the photography is atrocious. I toyed with the notion for a while that they might be so bad that they are actually kinda “good,” but no, they are worse than that. They are so frighteningly bad that I think Halloween is the most appropriate day of the year I can choose to blog about them.

I won’t pretend to be all knowing about the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, but I will make the assumption that the majority of the players, coaches and staff involved in the league work very hard to put a quality product out on the field for their fans. Therefore, I believe the players and coaches of the 2008 American Association Champion Sioux Falls Canaries deserve to have had their photographs taken by someone who has a better understanding of the workings of a camera than my grandmother. Sure, grandma may have somehow always managed to get her thumb into each and every shot, while sometimes accidentally cropping off the top of the head of the tallest person in the photo, but at least her shots were in focus.

Catcher Andrew Barbaro stands at the plate thinking, “Is it just me, or does the ball seem sort of fuzzy coming off the mound?”

No Andrew, it isn’t just you. Your entire team is out of focus.

Unless the photographer was also responsible for selecting and editing the images, then submitting them to the DAV representative who coordinated the free card promotion, I would say that more than one person should share in the diSTINKtion of having created one of the worst team sets in the modern era. Even the printer should have called the DAV rep and asked if they were positive that they wanted to go forward with this project.

I’m trying to think of something positive to say about this card of Canaries pitcher Angelo Morales. Beyond the fact that it is rectangular, I’m drawing a blank.

Perhaps it comes down to being a toss-up between inexperience (ie., never having seen a real baseball card before) or taste. It may be worth adding that Ballpark Digest recently named the Sioux Falls Canaries as having the “Best New Food Item of the Year” (2008). How intriguing! What on earth could it be? Try “Fowl Balls” on for size. That’s right; deep-fried turkey testicles. Honest.

I’m not sure if it is worse for the player who may only find himself on a single baseball card in his entire life- and that card is part of this set, or of it is worse for those players with minor and/or major league experience who may have become accustomed to being depicted somewhat realistically on their other cards.

I feel very sorry for each and every Pat Mahomes supercollector who is going to have to scramble to get one of his cards from this train wreck of a set. After accumulating more than 450 strikeouts in the major leagues while pitching for the Twins, Red Sox, Mets, Rangers, Cubs and Pirates, I guarantee you that Pat never saw a batter miss by a margin equal to the substandard execution of this set.

Mahomes isn’t the only player with major league experience included in this compost. Manager Steve Shirley pitched in some eleven games for the 1982 Los Angeles Dodgers. Don’t be shocked if you recognize more names when you scan through the checklist that I have gone to the trouble of typing up. Ex-big leaguers and determined young dreamers such as Kris Regas coming together to play baseball in places like “the Birdcage” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota should be celebrated instead of having their season tarnished by a product such as this. Even for FREE, these cards are overpriced.

If you really want one of these sets, you should expect three coach cards, four outfielders, five infielders, eleven pitchers, two catchers and one mascot- whom I suspects steers as clear of the “Fowl Balls” concession stand as possible.

1 – [166] Andrew Barbaro (c)
2 – [167] Alex Bardeguez (inf)
3 – [168] Lenny Bays (p)
4 – [169] Kennard Bibbs (out)
5 – [170] Kelly Casares (p)
6 – [171] Benny Castillo (hitting coach)
7 – [172] Ryan Ford (p)
8 – [173] Ryan Grant (p)
9 – [174] Tim Hutting (inf)
10 – [175] Travis Kane (p)
11 – [176] Josh Kite (p)
12 – [177] Pat Mahomes (p)
13 – [178] Mike Meyer (pitching coach)
14 – [179] Ben Moore (p)
15 – [180] Angelo Morales (p)
16 – [181] Josh Patton (inf)
17 – [182] Kris Regas (p)
18 – [183] Patrick Reilly (inf)
19 – [184] Grant Richardson (inf)
20 – [185] Mark Roberts (p)
21 – [186] Steve Shirley (manager)
22 – [187] Will Smith (out)
23 – [188] Paul Smyth (c)
24 – [189] Beau Torbert (out)
25 – [190] Ben Van Iderstine (out)
26 – [191] Cagey (mascot)

As is the case with all DAV baseball card releases, cardstock is thin, yet the cards are reasonably sturdy. There are no stats on the backs of the cards- standard for DAV sets. Surface treatment is a semi gloss that doesn’t require preparation prior to autographing.

I wonder if there are any graphers living in Sioux Falls. If so, I would love to find out if the baseball cards given away on August 12, 2008 are different than these, or these are the only cards fans have to commemorate the Canaries championship season. Normally, the DAV lists dates that they appear at ballparks, but for some reason Sioux Falls was omitted from the 2008 list. Possibly that is because the Canaries are not associated with major league baseball, or someone got a look at these things at the DAV after they were printed, but not early enough to cancel the giveaway, and removed that line from the website.

At any rate, you can’t buy these cards from the Canaries. Possibly you can find them on eBay or from some other secondary source, but I’m not going to even waste my time to look. Neither should you.

– Kris

Tags: DAV, independent baseball, Kris, team set review